News:

Your username and password for these discussion forums are unique to the forums. Your forum login information is separate from your My Adventure Cycling login information, and your login info for the Cyclosource online store. You will need to create a separate login for each of these. However, to make things a bit easier, you can use the same email and password for all three accounts. Also, please note that your login information for the forums is not connected to your Adventure Cycling membership number. We apologize for any inconvenience caused.

We have blocked registrations from several countries because of the large quantities of spam that originate there. If the forum denies your legitimate registration, please ask our administrator for an exception. webmaster@adventurecycling.org will need your IP address, which you can find at many web sites, including http://whatismyipaddress.com.

Messages - GSullivan

John, Thanks for posting on the forums. It will help move us forward in OK and beyond to have as many voices show up here as possible. If we start working with OK on routing, I will let you know. In the meantime, be sure to let the OK DOT know you're a willing volunteer. You can access all the bike ped coordinators from this website: http://www.walkinginfo.org/assistance/contacts.cfm

Hi Rob,The best way to help get the USBRS established is to work with the group that ends up being the lead organization for developing the routes. In Illinois case, I am hoping that IL DOT decides that these bike routes are a worth while investment and start organizing an effort to work on them. I have been in contact with the DOT and the League of IL Bicyclists. I think there will be a time in the near future when they might be able to work together. If you could contact LIB and let them know you'd be willing to help advocate for bicycling in your county and city board, I think that would benefit both cycling in general and the USBRS in the long term. Ed Brumley is your man.

Good idea Paul. I believe there is a un-prioritized corridor between those two routes but it probably should be linked.

I think as we move toward implementation through IL, the discussion should center around how to link into Detroit. You're right, it isn't very direct but there is probably a background reason based upon our inventory of routes as to why the corridor dips south.

I sent Paul information on the NPS Rivers Trails Assistance Program. They are GREAT people who do AMAZING work. If you have a project that might work for their program, visit their site. Deadline to apply for assistance is August 1!

This is an email that I've posted. If you are interested in seeing the maps Paul sent, please email Ginny and I will email them to you. They were too large to post on the forums. Thanks.

Scott;

Here are some maps we have put together to show bike trail linkages in the Lakeshore area. Some of the trail is in place. The proposed routes are based on our research of bicycle plans, recreation plans and master plans approved by various local governments.

The map research is preliminary, we hope to eventually extend our mapping research to St. Joseph and the Indiana State line, and begin discussion on a Lakeshore route with the Southwest Michigan Planning Commission and Berrien County.

The City of South Haven priority is promoting bicycle tourism. Our initial thought is to focus on a route that follows the lakeshore and provides access to tourist attractions in lakeshore communities. You will notice that parts of the routes that we have included in the map leave the lakeshore. From our point of view, it would be preferred to focus on the lakeshore route, with lakeshore meaning trying to stay within a mile, more or less of Lake Michigan, and connecting all of the harbor/beach/lakeshore towns. I'm not sure if that matches the goals of US35, but if it does we would be willing to try to coordinate the section between Ludington and the Indiana State Line.

Our meeting regarding a Saugatuck - South Haven bicycle trail on the 28th is open to anyone who might be interested. The group is meeting for the first time, and its focus may shift to a more regional effort.

Ginny Sullivan forwarded your message to Todd (who officially works for the Michigan Trails and Greenways Alliance) and myself (who unofficially volunteers). I'm a planning commissioner for China Township in St. Clair County, and I do about fifteen other things, and if I could figure out how to get paid for eight or ten of them I'd be rich.

We have been working on one of the five U.S. Bicycle Route corridors assigned to Michigan, designated U.S. Bike Route 20, which will run from Marine City (where there is a bicycle-accommodating border crossing into Ontario) to Ludington then via ferry to Manitowoc and on westward. Since we have learned that Wisconsin will first be working on USBR 30, which will connect to Michigan via the Milwaukee-Muskegon ferry, we have added a segment of USBR 35 from Muskegon to Ludington to our honey-do list, and that's where your project comes in, to my thinking.

None of these national bike routes will be "trail-only" projects; that's inconceivable. For USBR 20 and the part of USBR 35 we've looked at, our basic premise is we use good regional trails wherever we find them on the corridor, and where we don't have that, we use paved rural roads when possible and state roads with paved shoulders where necessary, favoring scenic routes where they exist, and going into communities where we can (so a bicyclist can get lunch or a Coke, use the bathroom, etc.).

U.S. Bike Route 35 on a national level is a very long corridor, stretching from the deep south up through Michigan. The Michigan portion, as you doubtless are aware, runs up the Lake Michigan shoreline. The current work we have done only covers the segment from Muskegon to Ludington and is in a very early draft stage. (I can show you that if you'd like to see it.) Not very many people have seen it yet or are even aware that we're working on it. (Josh DeBruyn, from the MDOT Nonmotorized Office, is one of the people aware of this.)

I think - and Todd, feel free to chime in - that the USBR 35 segment we're working on would be much better if it can be extended further north or south. Certainly if you have an excellent facility, existing or to be built, from South Haven to Saugatuck, it would make sense to consider incorporating that into the route. Of course, we'd have to connect it to the Muskegon-Ludington portion, somehow.

The process for designating a route and having it approved to be part of the U. S. Bicycle Route System is a fairly long one, complex and largely untried. This is all brand-new stuff we're doing. In Michigan, one thing that's likely is that we will need to have lots of local buy-in and transmit that up to Josh at MDOT, who then will apply to AASHTO for route designation on the various routes. Once that's done, assuming AASHTO approves a route, then it can be signed and mapped as a U. S. Bicycle Route.

From your own point of view, if you are in the grant-application process, I think the potential to establish your project as a segment of a route of national significance might help in the scoring system the various grant agencies use.

The City of South Haven is working together with neighboring communities to create a bike trail connection between South Haven and Saugatuck, Michigan. This would be a route along the lakeshore through a very attractive tourist destination.

Are there any larger bike routes that we can coordinate with, connect with or otherwise use as a reference in grant writing?

Also, I noted that US Bike Route 35 stops at the northernmost tip of the lower peninsula of Michigan. It seems like it should continue to Sault Ste Marie, Michigan, which is a border crossing to Canada. I'm not sure who the person is to make this comment to. Can you direct me to whoever is putting the plan together and would be the appropriate contact for this comment?

Thanks for any help you can provide.Paul VandenBoschProject ManagerCity of South Haven

On May 15, 2009, the Application for establishing U.S. Bicycle Routes was approved by the Special Committee on Route Numbering (SCRN), the committee that reviews USBR applications, and the over-seeing Standing Committee on Highways!

Watch for the application to be posted on the SCRN website http://cms.transportation.org/?siteid=68in the next month. In the meantime, you will find the application and updated Purpose and Policy Statement on the Adventure Cycling site www.adventurecycling.org/usbrs as soon as next week. While you're there, be sure to download the recently updated Corridor Map (we added the cities to help orient corridors) and the document entitled "Corridor Criteria" with suggested route criteria. An Additional resource page will be posted soon as well.

I am the leader of a large bicycle club in Wichita, Oz Bicycle Club, and we have a couple of questions we would like to ask you. The first is about the effort to create a national network of bicycle routes, as mentioned in the Bicycling Magazine last month. Can you help us find the Kansas contacts so we can help with this effort? Second, we live and ride in the greater Wichita area. It is in the path of the old Chisholm Trail, a very historic cattle ride route from Fort Worth TX to Abilene KS. There is a loose network of communities and various organizations working to create a scenic byway designation for automobile use. I have been approached to help make this route bicycle friendly. Many of us in the club really enjoy these little cattle towns, and all the many reenactment activities such as cattle drives. We think it would make a great north-south bike route through the midwest, offering a way for cross country riders to sample some of the Ol West history, and see the beauty of the small towns out here on the plains. Is there someone I could talk to about working with ACA to develop this bike route, or else get some advise about independent development. One of the members got the bright idea to have a tailwind ride, coordinated by bike clubs all along the Chisholm Trail, and let people enjoy the benefits of our prairie winds to make the 400+ mile ride. Can you help us or work with us on this? Regards Delores Craig The Wixard of Oz Bicycle Club

Greetings: I found you have been working with the American Association of State Highway & Transportation Officials to develop a transcontinental network of Bike Routes. I was wondering if you know if there are many trails that have been developed between states already. I am Chairman of the Friends of the Jackson County Trails Association, a non-profit group that is working to build trails throughout Jackson County MN. On August 1, we are holding a Grand Opening of a Trail that we built that connects some of our County Park system with Dickenson County Trail system. In my research so far I see plans for many interstate trail systems but have not found any completed ones. I would think there must be a number of trails that cross state lines. Today I go before a state legislative sub committee to ask for permission to discuss State Trail designation for a trail we would like to build from Iowa to another State Trail in Minnesota. I was interested in information on the Proposed interstate bike trails that you are proposing. It is very interesting. Keep of the good work.